Folds
The accumulate procedure is also known as
fold-right
, because it combines the first element of the sequence with the result of combining all the elements to the right. There is also a
fold-left
, which is similar to
fold-right
, except that it combines elements working in the opposite direction:
(define (fold-left op initial sequence)
(define (iter result rest)
(if (null? rest)
result
(iter (op result (car rest))
(cdr rest))))
(iter initial sequence))
What are the values of
(fold-right / 1 (list 1 2 3))
(fold-left / 1 (list 1 2 3))
(fold-right list nil (list 1 2 3))
(fold-left list nil (list 1 2 3))
Give a property that
op
should satisfy to guarantee that
fold-right
and
fold-left
will produce the same values for any sequence.